Heavyweights
The Disney summer-camp comedy where a fat camp gets bought by a manic infomercial fitness guru — Ben Stiller as Tony Perkis, one of the great over-the-top '90s comedy villains. A modest release that became a genuine cult classic on cable and video.
Heavyweights hit theaters in February 1995, directed by Steven Brill and co-written by Brill and a young Judd Apatow — it was Apatow's first feature screenplay. Set at the kids' weight-loss retreat Camp Hope, the story turns when the kindly old owners go broke and sell to Tony Perkis (Ben Stiller), a deranged self-help fitness entrepreneur who plans to film the campers' misery as an infomercial, subjecting them to boot-camp humiliation and near-starvation.
The kids revolt, capture Perkis, and reclaim the camp on their own terms — learning to actually have fun. Stiller plays a dual role (Perkis Jr. and Sr.), and the cast is loaded with future-familiar faces and family: his real-life parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, plus a young Kenan Thompson and Mighty Ducks alum Shaun Weiss.
Owner's note aside — its real title is Heavyweights, not "Camp Heavyweights." A modest theatrical earner, it became a cult favorite among millennials, notable both as Judd Apatow's screenwriting debut and as an early showcase for Stiller's manic-villain comedy, a template he'd return to for years.
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